


Missed Opportunities

by frozensea



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Flyboys, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Canon, emotions are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23527558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozensea/pseuds/frozensea
Summary: "You're your own worst enemy, you know? If something ever trips you up, it will be that."
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7
Collections: Party in the GFFA: Star Wars Flash Exchange 2020





	Missed Opportunities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts).



"Come on, Come on. _Come on_. _Yes!_ "

Poe pulled out of the dive, twisted his X-wing into a tight, upward spiral and shot out of the first asteroid field that lay between him and victory.

The Umbarian run was an annual race leading up to the Five Sabers. Poe wouldn't be able to participate in the latter because of his flight training at the academy, but he and a handful of his classmates had challenged each other to complete the Umbarian run, a race notorious for its dangerous route past gravity wells, asteroid fields, and the ghost nebula.

What had started as a simple opportunity for flyboys to shoot off their mouths had quickly turned into a serious competition with various side bets, and Poe was determined to win them all. And it had come as no surprise that the pilot proving to be his most dangerous competition was not one of his fellow cadets, but his childhood friend.

"Hey, Solo," Poe shouted over the coms. "Can you even see my taillights from all the way back there, or have you already- fuck, fuck, what the hell?"

He wrenched his X-wing to the side just in time to avoid another starfighter shaving off his wingtip as it streaked past him.

"You were saying?" Ben's voice crackled in his ears, and Poe could practically feel the smugness oozing off it. "Let me know if you want me to save you a drink when you finally crawl over the finish line."

"You bastard. You almost clipped me." Poe made a sharp turn around a stray asteroid and headed into the nebula. He'd never been comfortable navigating by his fighter's instruments alone, but it would shorten his run by at least five parsecs and get him back ahead.

"If you can't take the heat, you shouldn't have bragged about being the best pilot in the galaxy," Ben shot back with a laugh.

Poe switched off the coms with an irritated growl. The ever-shifting debris and dust clusters within the nebula were tricky to avoid and he needed all his concentration to make it safely to the other side.

"I _am_ the best pilot, you cocky little shit," he grumbled as a proximity alarm went off and he wrenched the controls to the side. "And I'm going to prove it to you."

* * *

A loss was a loss no matter how narrow it had turned out to be.

Poe consoled himself by nursing a drink and accepting the good-natured ribbing of his friends with as much grace as he could muster, but on the inside, it nagged at him that he'd shot over the finish line figuratively riding Ben's tailwind.

And he couldn't help but wonder... that last asteroid field...

Poe had been in the lead, dodging and weaving through a tight cluster of drifting rock, diving towards an uninhabited planet, watching smaller pieces burning up in the atmosphere while he used his shields to bounce off it and come back up behind the cluster just as it exploded.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and following his lead, Ben had fired a torpedo into the cluster, shattering the largest rocks and then flown right on through the debris.

It had been a risky maneuver and not something Poe would have considered doing other than as a last resort, such as if he had a whole squadron of TIE-fighters on his tail. The fact that Ben had done something so dangerous, just to win a race... It didn't sit right. How easily could the debris have torn apart his hull or perforated his cockpit and him with it? 

"Hey, don't look so glum," Ben said as he came up next to him, two drinks in his hand and a wide smile on his face. He tossed his long, black hair out of his eyes. "Being the second-best pilot in the galaxy is nothing to sneeze at. The way you pulled off that bounce was impressive. Good flying. Not sure I could have done better."

That was Ben for you. Gracious in victory, though not in defeat.

"How did you do it?" Poe asked distractedly before he tossed back his own drink so he could accept the one Ben held out to him.

"Do what?"

"Don't play coy. Using a torpedo to get through that cluster was downright reckless. Why would you risk your life like that for a stupid race?"

"Stupid, eh?" Ben was still smiling, but Poe detected a sudden brittleness around the edges. "You didn't think it was stupid when you were boasting about how you'd make me choke on your afterburners."

"Oh, come on. I was shit-talking, and you know it. I just can't wrap my head around you taking that kind of risk."

"What I know is that you're a sore loser. I didn't take any risk that wasn't necessary, and it's pretty insulting that you don't think I'm a good enough pilot to pull that maneuver off safely."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Well then, how about you try a 'congratulations, Ben, or 'well done, Ben' or even just 'let's go somewhere quiet because we haven't seen each other since your parents sent you off to train with your uncle and I can't wait to tear your clothes off, Ben'."

Though there was a cocky smile on Ben's face it didn't fool Poe for a moment. As much as he was interested in Ben's last suggestion, he wasn't about to allow Ben to distract him, and by now he was fairly sure that that was Ben's intention. Cockiness came to Ben as naturally as humility came to a Hutt crime lord, and it sat on his face like a mask hiding a lack of confidence that Poe had never really understood.

Ben had a lot going for him. He was smart, tall, attractive, with a dry sense of humor that Poe appreciated, and as if that wasn't enough, he was also a Force-user which added a general air of mystery to his moody disposition.

Poe smacked his palm flat on the table. "You used the Force," he realized with a start.

He could practically see Ben's walls coming up to his ears. He'd always been a terrible liar, wearing his emotions on his face as if they were accessories rather than something private.

"You did. You used the Force to... I don't know... push the debris away from you." He mimicked a breaststroke as if he was swimming through the asteroid field.

Ben shrugged. "Why shouldn't I have used the Force? he asked with an air of mulishness that had Poe fuming.

"Because that's cheating."

"It is not."

"Yes, it is. You had an unfair advantage. You cheated."

"I used the skills I had to win fair and square." Ben looked visibly upset and just a tad guilty.

 _Because he knows that he cheated, or because I figured it out?_ Poe wondered.

"Bullshit. No one else has the abilities that you do. Using the Force isn't a skill set you can master if you don't have it to begin with. You're a cheater, Ben Solo."

"Stop saying that."

"I am disappointed, buddy. That's low."

Ben pressed his lips together and suddenly the giant mirror behind the bar split in two with a loud crack.

Poe gaped at him. "Did you just-"

But Ben was already on his feet and rushing towards the exit, leaving Poe with a fleeting impression of his stricken face.

"Hey," Poe called out as he ran after him. "Ben. Hold up. You're blowing this completely out of proportion. It's just a stupid race."

* * *

Poe wrapped his arms around Ben when he collapsed in a sweaty heap on top of him.

"Wow," he laughed. "I should rile you up more often if that's what it leads to."

Ben's only reaction was a non-committal grunt.

Poe reached down and gave his naked ass an affectionate pat. "Come on, grumpy. Roll over. You weigh more than a ton of bricks. And where did all those muscles come from? I swear you didn't have those last year. I thought the whole point of being a Jedi is that you can lift rocks with your mind. Is Luke making you do it with your hands?"

The muscles in Ben's back tensed at the mention of his uncle, and he lifted himself off Poe with a wary look before slumping onto the mattress next to him. 

His eyes were closed, a sure sign that he had no desire to talk but unlike Ben, Poe could be patient. 

To be fair, patience came easier when it was tied to a healthy dose of obnoxiousness, a skill Poe had honed to perfection. Thus, he shifted to his side, propped his head up on his hand and stared at Ben's face.

Quietly.

 _Intensely_.

In his imagination, his gaze drilled its way through Ben's forehead, right into his brain until Ben's mind was filled with nothing but his thou-

"Will you knock that off," Ben grumbled. His eyes snapped open, and Poe answered his irritated glare with his best shit-eating grin.

"You could make this easier on yourself and answer my question."

"I don't want to talk right now."

"Wore you out, did I?" Poe teased and he couldn't help feeling a little bit smug about it.

"If I say yes, will you leave me alone?"

"Not a chance. Honestly, I don't understand why you're so uptight about your Jedi training. And you know me. The more you make a secret out of it, the more curious I get."

Ben made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. "Yes, he's making me lift them with my hands. He's also making me run every morning and evening. That image you have of the easy-going, benevolent, yet heroic Jedi master couldn't be more wrong. The guy is worse than any drill instructor at the academy."

Poe took a moment to process this. "Is he like that with everyone, or just you?"

Ben shrugged. "He wants me to set an example. I'm more powerful than his other students, and he says I need more control than they do."

"Makes sense."

Ben shot him a caustic glare. "Easy for you to say. You're not on the receiving end of his attention, are you?"

"Alright. Fair point. You do know that you don't have to stay with him, right? You can come back to the academy." He nudged him. "I don't do the whole mushy thing, but it's not as if I don't miss you."

Ben moved his jaw in that idiosyncratic way he had when he felt vulnerable but didn't want to admit it. "I can't. I already disappointed my parents enough, I don't want to make it worse."

Poe sighed. Perhaps Ben's worst failing was that he wanted everyone to like him and thought the best way to accomplish that was to anticipate what people expected of him rather than ask what they actually wanted. Viewed from the outside, his relationship with his parents was no exception, and the only reason he didn't needle Ben more often to be honest with them was that he knew Ben was as cagey revealing anything personal to him as he was with everyone else. Poe wouldn't think of himself as the most perceptive guy out there, but even he realized that there was more going on than he'd figured out on his own.

On the other hand, he couldn't just let that statement stand. "If your parents knew how unhappy you are-"

"My mother thinks it's important for me to learn discipline. And Luke agrees with her. He's always harping on about me controlling my emotions."

"I see." What could he say to that? Ben had always been the kind of person who's discipline was strongly tied to his feelings. If he cared about something and felt passionate about it, control came easy to him, but if he was bored, or felt that he was failing in some way, when his insecurities got the better of him, well... patience and perseverance were not the same as stubbornness, which was something Poe struggled with as well.

Ben was quiet for a long time. "I think he's afraid of me," he said eventually, his voice so quiet that Poe's brain needed a moment to make sense of the words.

"That's ridiculous, Ben. Why would he be scared of you?"

Benn shrugged. "Look at what happened at the bar. You might have shrugged it off, but I can't blame him for being wary. I know that it's not okay for me to lose my temper like that. I just... I'm not even doing it intentionally. It's like I'm riding a wave of emotions and I can't get off it for fear of drowning."

"No, buddy. Listen. Do you want to know why I'm not worried? It's all surface anger with you. It doesn't go deep and it never lasts long. You cracked a mirror. You didn't shatter it. You didn't crush the glasses or bottles that people were holding. You just cracked a pane of glass. You could have hurt people, but you didn't. We both know that you're a bit of a jerk most of the time, but you wouldn't ever physically hurt anyone on purpose."

Ben was silent. Poe could see shadows in his eyes that hadn't been there a year ago, and despite his words, he suddenly felt uneasy. He couldn't help the foreboding feeling that he was missing something important, that something was sliding out of his grasp that would be lost to him forever if he didn't hold on to it with all his might.

"You actually believe that, don't you? That I..."

"That you don't want to hurt anyone? Blazes, Ben, of course, I do." The idea that Ben might be in doubt of that was genuinely shocking.

"No. You actually believe that I..." Ben swallowed convulsively. "That I'm a good person."

Poe was at a loss for words.

When he and Ben had parted a year ago, Ben had been angry over his parents sending him away. Poe had tried to reason with him, that perhaps some distance to his parents would help him figure out what he wanted to do with his life, but he hadn't been able to diminish Ben's sense of abandonment. When it came right down to it, Ben wanted to belong, and his family sending him away had caused a rift about which Ben had felt bitter even then, though Poe had had no idea that the wound would go so deep.

"Why would you believe that you're not? What happened?"

Ben sucked on the inside of his cheek, then shook his head and turned away. "You wouldn't understand."

Frustrated, Poe sat up and stared at his back. "And Force forbid you actually gave me a chance to." He ran a hand through his tousled hair as he struggled for patience. "Look, I didn't realize that whatever is happening to you is this serious, but I'm here. You can talk to me."

"It's not important. I'm just in a weird mood."

 _Oh, fuck no. As if I'm going to believe that._ "Ben, I can't help you, if you don't tell me what's going on."

"It's nothing. Go back to your friends. I need to sleep."

Poe took a deep breath to rein in his temper. He was an easy-going guy, who preferred to keep things casual rather than to complicate his life with deep-dives in messy feelings, but he liked to think he was a decent human being who cared about his friends and family. And he cared about Ben.

Which was the only reason, he didn't take his clothes and stomp out of the room.

"If you think being a little rude is enough to get rid of me, I'll have to disappoint you. I'm worried about you, okay? I want to help."

Ben surged up, face twisted into a mask of annoyance. Whatever demons he was struggling with, for the moment, they were tightly locked away behind a wall of anger.

"I don't need your help," he snapped. "I'm sorry I said anything. I'm sorry I cheated you out of a victory, and I'm sorry I can't just quit being a Jedi and come back to the academy for someone who doesn't do all this mushy stuff, but kind of, sort of, _maybe_ misses me every now and then, when it doesn't inconvenience him too much."

"Hey, now, that is not what I said."

"Go away, Poe. I'm not into the mushy stuff either, and you're starting to sound like a lovesick fool. Begging doesn't suit you."

"You fuckhead," Poe snapped. He scrambled out of bed. "Fine. If you want to wallow in your own fucking misery, don't let me stop you."

"I won't." The sullen look in Ben's eyes would have provoked another snappy retort on any other day, but Poe's anger didn't have a strong enough hold on him for him not to realize that he was being manipulated.

He slipped into his pants and shoes but didn't bother with the rest of his clothes.

"You're your own worst enemy, you know? If something ever trips you up, it will be that."

Ben blinked and looked away. His mouth parted as if he wanted to say something, but the moment stretched on and on until it faded away. Pulling the blanket up over his shoulders, he turned towards the wall.

"Good night, Poe."

Poe gathered the rest of his clothes but hesitated in the door. It cost him more dearly than he cared to admit, but he managed to get the words out before he left.

"If you ever do want to talk, you know where to find me."

He punched the door lightly, just to get rid of some of the tension that had settled in his shoulders. Then he walked away not waiting for a reply.

He knew he wouldn't get one.


End file.
